Happy Birthday Palm!
10 years ago today the 128K Pilot 1000 was introduced to the
world. How many of you remember the 1000? How many of you bought
one right away? And, how many of you still have one in a drawer
someplace? Could there be some people out there that are even still
using one? It really doesn’t feel like it has been that long ago…
I can still remember drawing the Pilot 1000’s footprint in actual
size using Mentor Graphics Electronic CAD software. I printed the
outline, cut it out with scissors and tried to imagine what it
would be like to hold and use it. Yes, even 1 year before I started
The Gadgeteer, I was already a hopeless geek ;o)
I loved the 1000, even with it’s hard to see mono display. This
device and subsequent models changed the world forever. The Pilot
1000 was the first PDA, that fit in the palm of your hand, had a
touch screen, and synced PIM data with your computer. Even to this
day, people use the word “PalmPilot” as a generic term for any
PDA.
For those of you that owned a Pilot 1000 or one of the early
models, remember how it seemed that every day or so, there was a
new cool application / game released? Everything was exciting back
then. Those really were the good old days. I wish we could
recapture some of that magic!
I wonder if Palm will still be kicking in 2012? I guess time
will tell…
